Crazy Mylestones

I know we've neglected to blog as of late. But this week there have been two surprising Mylestones that I have to share! The first was earlier this week when I was driving Myles to his morning out program. He kept pointing to roads and saying "road, more road, more road" with each one we passed. I told him what road we were on and where it led (his morning out program), and then he told me "Go right!" The funny thing is he said this just before we typically turn right. I don't think he knows his right from left, but did hear Seth and I do a lot of "turn right" and "turn left" over the weekend as we were navigating. When we turn onto the road where is morning out program is he always cheers, so I know he recognizes some land marks.

The second one happened yesterday. My mom and dad got Myles a book some time ago called "The Appalachian ABCs" and each letter is paired with something Appalachian. Myles really likes the book and so we read it together often. Yesterday as we were reading it, we turned to the "P is for pottery" page and he yelled "P!" before I had the chance to say it. I was so surprised, so I started going through the book just tracing the letters and seeing if he would say them...he said "K" and "P" and "U." Tonight I asked him what each letter was and he got about 5-7. Smart cookie! There's something extraordinarily rewarding as a parent when you realize that your kid has absorbed all kinds of things you didn't realize they were learning.

The weekend was pretty good. The bad news was we didn't get to visit with my pen pal Robby because when I called to set up the appointment, he already had a visitor signed up for the week and he can only have one per week. Robby has no control over who signs up to visit him, he's just informed on visitation day that he has a visitor. So he had no idea someone had signed up to visit him and I had no way other than snail mail to tell him I couldn't come. I thought maybe being clergy would exempt me from the visitation rule, but on Friday I called for several hours and the visitation line was busy every time I called so I couldn't get through. Myles didn't sleep on Saturday (he doesn't do well when in a room with us and we were at a hotel), and so he was crabby and I think a little under the weather on Sunday. He and Seth stayed at the hotel while I went to the church to preach....which was an amazing experience! This church was a new church start ten years ago and it was an incredible blessing to see how they have grown and continue to thrive ten years out.

Backing up, on Friday we took the day off and went to Richmond to see Seth's brothers. We stayed with Greg, who officially lives in the coolest suburb I've ever been in (and I'm not a big fan of suburbs). The neighborhood is immersed in tall tall trees, with biking and running trails throughout. On Saturday morning, Seth and Greg ran in the biggest 10k in the country, and Seth placed 13th in his age group! His time was excellent. Then Jon took us out to Chuck E. Cheese as a belated birthday celebration for Myles. The highlight was that our table was next to a toddler Bob the Builder ride, which Myles went on again and again and again. Jon also had a blast with the skiball.

Church work is keeping me really busy. Happily so. All is well on that front.

Have a good night yall!